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The creation of every album has a story behind it, and the primary goal of many *music promotions is to package that tale into a form that makes people want to listen to the album and support the artist behind it.

One of the strangest tales, somewhat naturally, comes from one of the most unique and pioneering names in the early world of British rock and roll, but one probably more famous these days for their political antics.

Screaming Lord Sutch, born *David Sutch in 1940, was a somewhat unique man known for some shock rock stunts that were ahead of their time, shockingly tasteless and often somewhat hilarious, such as lighting a biscuit tin on fire when his band, The Savages, played a cover of Great Balls Of Fire.

His most famous song was the horror rock Jack The Ripper, which became an influential garage rock staple, covered by bands such as The Horrors, The Black Lips and The White Stripes, even if it was quickly banned by the BBC.

After a brief stint in pirate radio and having built up a surprisingly substantial list of a-list collaborators who had played in the savages, including Ritchie Blackmore and Jimmy Page, and even as early as 1963 was taking part in elections, although not as part of The Monster Raving Loony Party until 1983.

His most infamous musical moment came when he brought together an all-star list of collaborations, including Mr Page, Mr Blackmore, Jeff Beck, John Bonham and Noel Redding for the album *Lord Sutch and Heavy Friends.

There is some controversy with this, however, as according to Mr Page, they were under the impression that the songs were just demos for a largely improvised jam session. The musicians didn’t take it seriously and it shows in the music played.

Ultimately, Lord Sutch enlisted some session guitarist soundalikes to finish the album, and the result can be charitably described as so bad it’s good. Much like the infamous film Plan 9 From Outer Space the mix of talented professionals and utterly bizarre creative decisions leads to an entertaining mess.

The immediate disowning of the album after its complete savaging by the music press ended Lord Sutch’s career as a serious artist, but he would continue to perform alongside taking part in the most parliamentary elections in history before shockingly taking his own life in 1999 at the age of 58.

Those who follow *Barack Obama on Twitter know the former president of the USA shares his end of year playlist every December. So, what featured in his 2022 portfolio of favourite tunes?

Perhaps most surprisingly is *Lizzo’s About Damn Time, which samples the 1980’s hip hop hit Hey! DJ. Taken from her fourth album, the lyrics include ‘It’s bad bitch o’clock’.

Beyonce’s Break My Soul was also one of Obama’s top tunes last year. The song, which was released in June, was the lead single of Bey’s comeback album Renaissance.

Proving the ex-politician knows his music, Break My Soul has received three Grammy Award nominations, including Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Best Dance / Electronic Recording.

Among the other *Grammy Award nominees are Adele, Harry Styles, and Mary J Blige for Record of the Year; Taylor Swift, Bonnie Raitt and Lizzo for Song of the Year; and Coldplay, Bad Buny and Kendrick Lamar for Album of the Year.

American rapper Kendrick Lamar’s The Heart Part 5 was also a top tune for Obama in 2022, as well as Plains’ Problem With It, and Koffee’s Pull Up.

Omar Apollo’s Tamagotchi, Xavier Omar’s Feelings 4 You and Sudan Archives’ Home Maker also made it into his top 25 songs of 2022.

Some of Obama’s 133.3 million followers made recommendations over what tunes and artists he should check out on the radio for 2023. This includes The Mollusk by Ween, Middle of A Heart by Adeem the Artist, and Justin Benjamin’s Surely.

The 61-year-old’s playful post has received nearly 15,000 retweets, nearly 13,500 quote tweets, and 147,300 likes so far.

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